Security of Wireless Networks AS08

Autumn semester 2008, course no. 251-1411-00L, (5 ECTS)
Lectures: Tuesday, 13-15h, in IFW A36
First lecture: 23.09.2008, Last lecture: 16.12.2008
Exercises: every second Friday, 13-15h, in IFW A26.2
First exercise: 03.10.2008

Course responsible: Prof. Srdjan Capkun (capkuns@inf.ethz.ch)
Assistants on the course: Ghassan Karame (karameg@inf.ethz.ch) and Davide Zanetti (zanettid@inf.ethz.ch)

Course Announcements

- 16.12..2008: The oral exam will take place in Prof. Srdjan Capkun's office, which is located in IFW C41.2.
- 03.12.2008: The final version of the scheduling of the exams is now available online.
- 01.12.2008: An update on the lab manual is now available online.
- 26.11.2008: The scheduling of the exams is now available online.
- 13.11.2008: An update on the lab manual is now available online.
- 10.11.2008: Information about cantenna hardware is now available on the cantenna page.
- 30.10.2008: An update on the lab manual is now available online.
- 06.10.2008: An update on the student assignment to the lab sessions is now available online.
- 30.09.2008: The student assignment to the lab sessions is now available online.
- 29.09.2008: Instructions on the cantenna exercise are now available online.
- 29.09.2008: Lab exercises and instructions for the lab are now available online.

Course description:

Core elements: Wireless communication channel, Wireless network architectures and protocols, Attacks on wireless networks, Protection techniques.

Course content: Wireless channel basics. Wireless electronic warfare: jamming and target tracking. Basic security protocols in cellular, WLAN and multi-hop networks. Recent advances in security of multi-hop networks; RFID privacy challenges and solutions.

Learning objectives: After this course, the students should be able to: describe and classify security goals and attacks in wireless networks; describe security architectures of the following wireless systems and networks: 802.11, GSM/UMTS, RFID, ad hoc/sensor networks; reason about security protocols for wireless network; implement mechanisms to secure 802.11 networks.

Evaluation:
Oral exam = 80% of the grade
20% exercises and related reports

Detailed content:

1. Wireless Electronic Warfare
   basics (wireless channel equations)
   jamming and antijamming
   low-probability of intercept signals (LPI)
   source localization techniques
   Related exercise: cantenna
2. Security of WiFi networks
   802.11 architecture and protocols
   (un)authorized access: MAC filtering, WEP, WPA, 802.1X, 802.11i
   Selfish behavior in WiFi networks
   Related exercises: WiFi security issues
3. Security of Cellular networks
   GSM and UMTS security architectures
   Attacks on GSM networks
4. Security in wireless multi-hop networks
   architectures and protocols
   naming and addressing
   key establishment/management
   secure distributed computing
   thwarting selfish behavior
5. Secure RFID systems
   readers and tags
   security issues: privacy, forgery, sabotage
   RFID security protocols
6. Special (research) topics
   wireless device pairing
   broadcast authentication
   secure localization and time synchronization
   ....

Course Material

Will be available before each lecture.

Lecture 1 [PDF]
Lecture 2 [PDF]
Lecture 3 [PDF]
Lecture 4 [PDF]
Lecture 5 [PDF]
Lecture 6 [PDF] [PPT]
Lecture 7 [PDF]
Lecture 8 [PDF]
Lecture 9 [PDF]
Lecture 10 [PDF]
Lecture 11 [PDF]

Lab Exercises

The lab exercise will be held every two weeks starting from October 3.

The lab manual can be downloaded from this link.

Lab instructions can be found here.

Information on the cantenna exercise can be found here.

The student assignment to the lab sessions can be found here. In case your name doesn't appear on that list, please make sure to attend the first lab session on the 3rd of October 2008 at 13:00.

Oral Exams

The oral exams will take place on Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th of December 2008.
In both days there will be a morning session from 08:30 to 12 and an afternoon session from 14 to 18.

The length of a single exam will be between 15 and 20 minutes.

The exams scheduling can be found here.